John. W. Carlton - "The Generous Eye" (June 11, 1972)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
(piano music playing) | 0:03 | |
(organs drown out choir) | 0:07 | |
- | Grace and peace be to you from God, the father | 3:01 |
and our Lord Jesus Christ. | 3:06 | |
Seek ye the Lord, while he made me found | 3:09 | |
and call ye upon him while he is near. | 3:13 | |
To all who are weary and seek rest, | 3:17 | |
to all who struggle and desire victory, | 3:20 | |
to all who sin and seek forgiveness, | 3:24 | |
this hour is open with opportunity and with promise. | 3:28 | |
Let us offer unto God our prayers of confession. | 3:35 | |
Let us pray. | 3:40 | |
Oh Lord we ask that we might open our hearts, | 3:49 | |
that we might meet the conditions | 3:54 | |
that will enable you to fulfill your promises to hear, | 3:56 | |
to forgive, and to heal your people. | 4:01 | |
All mighty God whose grace is the font of all our light | 4:09 | |
and whose love is the source of all our hope, | 4:16 | |
hear us as we lift our prayers of confession | 4:20 | |
and of repentance. | 4:24 | |
Lord, your majestry is shrouded in mystery, | 4:27 | |
and your ways are far beyond our knowing, | 4:32 | |
yet you have come to us in Jesus | 4:36 | |
and have offered us your graceful and faithful love. | 4:40 | |
And you've called us to live in integrity of soul | 4:45 | |
and to come before you in honesty | 4:49 | |
and in penitence for our sins. | 4:53 | |
Oh God whose justice demands truth in our inward parts | 4:58 | |
and whose anger is upon the uncaring, | 5:03 | |
we confess before the that we are oftentimes lost | 5:08 | |
in a land of luxury, | 5:13 | |
where nothing seems to satisfy the needs of the soul. | 5:15 | |
There is no taste in the mouth full of the cake of affluence | 5:21 | |
that are unwilling to provide the bread of common justice. | 5:26 | |
We confess that there is no joy and hearts | 5:32 | |
open to private pleasure, but closed to public need that. | 5:35 | |
That there is no laughter in ears choked with chatter, | 5:42 | |
but deaf to the cries of human suffering. | 5:48 | |
Have mercy upon us oh God, | 5:53 | |
forgive our sins and restore us to the joys | 5:56 | |
of your salvation we ask. | 6:00 | |
Oh God who's compassion is upon the powerless | 6:04 | |
and whose anger is upon the heartless, | 6:07 | |
we you sit here in this country with blood on our hands, | 6:11 | |
and all we can think to do is ring these bloody hands. | 6:16 | |
Forgive oh Lord our complacence with killing, | 6:22 | |
rebuke our shrugs at poverty and war | 6:26 | |
as though we could do nothing about them. | 6:29 | |
Confront us who can feed and protect our own children | 6:32 | |
that we rest not till all parents can feed | 6:37 | |
and protect their children. | 6:41 | |
Save us from the fever of lusting after victory | 6:44 | |
and the destruction of our enemies. | 6:46 | |
Grant us to care more about saving lives and saving face. | 6:50 | |
Forgive our father that heady humanity, | 6:57 | |
which allows us to care about people suffering | 7:01 | |
across the city or across the ocean, | 7:04 | |
but leaves us cold to the need of those across the table, | 7:08 | |
or the desk, or the bed. | 7:12 | |
Melt our cynicism we ask, with the hope of Jesus. | 7:17 | |
And take us by surprise with a near forgotten intuition | 7:22 | |
stirring deep within us. | 7:26 | |
Shake us loose from pattern behaviors of evil, | 7:29 | |
to love each other without calculation or condition. | 7:34 | |
Break down our defenses and lower our guard, | 7:38 | |
that for these brief minutes of worship, | 7:43 | |
we may be defenseless before your forgiving law, | 7:46 | |
vulnerable as children, | 7:51 | |
ready once again for miracles of the soul, | 7:54 | |
eager for surprises, | 7:59 | |
till our sins are truly forgiven, | 8:01 | |
till our enemies become friends, | 8:05 | |
and there comes peace in our souls and goodwill among men. | 8:09 | |
This we ask in the name of Jesus our Lord, amen. | 8:16 | |
Let us hear, believe and receive | 8:24 | |
these assuring words of our Lord to a penitence sinner. | 8:30 | |
Jesus said, "Be of good cheer, | 8:36 | |
your sins are forgiven. | 8:41 | |
Go and sin no more." | 8:45 | |
And I say to you accept the fact | 8:50 | |
that you are accepted by God's love. | 8:52 | |
That whatever you have done, | 8:56 | |
you are free from bondage to your past | 8:58 | |
and from anxiety for your future. | 9:01 | |
You are free to live fully and fatefully in the present. | 9:05 | |
You are valued just as you are. | 9:11 | |
Life is good, for this given of God, your future is open. | 9:15 | |
May we arise from our past, | 9:23 | |
pick up our lives and faith and walk forward in love. | 9:26 | |
And as an act of acceptance, | 9:33 | |
may we join in the unison prayer of Thanksgiving, | 9:36 | |
with the goodness of God. | 9:40 | |
Let us pray. | 9:42 | |
We give thanks to you oh God, our creator. | 9:46 | |
You are worthy of praise from every creature you have made, | 9:51 | |
for in these last days you have sent your only son | 9:55 | |
to be the savior and redeemer of the world. | 10:00 | |
In him you have forgiven our sins | 10:04 | |
and made us worthy to stand before you. | 10:07 | |
In him you have brought us out of darkness into light, | 10:11 | |
out of error into truth, out of death into life. | 10:16 | |
We give you thanks oh father, for the goodness and love | 10:21 | |
with which you have made known to us in creation, | 10:25 | |
in the calling of Israel and the words of the prophets | 10:29 | |
and above all in Jesus your son, amen. | 10:34 | |
(piano music playing) | 10:40 | |
(muffled singing) | 11:41 | |
(organs drown out music) | 14:17 | |
(muffled singing) | 15:14 | |
The lesson appointed for this day | 16:32 | |
is taken from the gospel according to Saint Matthew, | 16:33 | |
chapter six, | 16:37 | |
beginning with verse 19, continuing through verse 25. | 16:39 | |
Let us hear and receive the word of God. | 16:44 | |
Jesus spake these words saying, | 16:49 | |
do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, | 16:53 | |
where moth and rust consume | 16:58 | |
and where thieves break in and steal, | 17:01 | |
but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, | 17:04 | |
where neither moth nor rust consumes | 17:08 | |
and where thieves do not break in and steal. | 17:11 | |
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. | 17:14 | |
The eye is the lamp of the body. | 17:21 | |
So if your eye is sound, | 17:24 | |
your whole body will be full of light. | 17:26 | |
But if your eye is not sound, | 17:30 | |
your whole body will be full of darkness. | 17:32 | |
If then the light in you is darkness, | 17:35 | |
how great is the darkness? | 17:39 | |
No one can serve two masters, | 17:43 | |
for either he will hate the one and love the other, | 17:46 | |
or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. | 17:51 | |
You cannot serve God and mammon. | 17:55 | |
Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, | 18:01 | |
what you shall eat, or what you shall drink, | 18:05 | |
nor about your body, what your shelf put on. | 18:08 | |
Is not life more than food | 18:12 | |
and the body more than clothing? | 18:15 | |
Here in is the reading on the lesson. | 18:21 | |
(piano music playing) | 18:25 | |
(organs drowns out choir) | 18:33 | |
The Lord be with you. | 19:09 | |
(congregation answers faintly) | 19:11 | |
Let us pray. | 19:12 | |
Let us offer unto God our prayers of intercession, | 19:21 | |
and petition for the needs of the world, | 19:25 | |
our neighbors and ourselves. | 19:28 | |
Oh God of love and power, | 19:36 | |
we offer up our concern for the peoples of the world, | 19:39 | |
our neighbors whom we know | 19:45 | |
and our neighbors whom we know not. | 19:47 | |
Oh loving father we remember the children of the world. | 19:52 | |
Our children who we know and love, | 19:58 | |
who crawl on the cool grass, | 20:01 | |
who stagger with their first hilarious steps. | 20:04 | |
The eager children that we see every day | 20:08 | |
who play ball and climb trees and ride bikes, | 20:10 | |
who eat hamburgers and ice cream and get in fights | 20:15 | |
and play games. | 20:19 | |
Oh Lord, let us not forget other children. | 20:22 | |
Let us not forget the children who have no milk to drink, | 20:29 | |
who crawl on hot streets where there are no trees | 20:33 | |
and see on TV how the other 80% live. | 20:38 | |
Let us not forget before thee, | 20:43 | |
the children who run from the whine of jet engines | 20:46 | |
and who scream daily at the whistle of bombs. | 20:50 | |
May your love our father breakthrough their pain | 20:56 | |
and bring peace we ask. | 21:01 | |
Of God we would remember those in the prime of life, | 21:06 | |
whose work prospers, whose families are happy, | 21:10 | |
who eat the fruits of competence and achievement. | 21:15 | |
We're glad to be who they are. | 21:20 | |
Who enjoy their leisure and take their pleasure | 21:23 | |
and look back with satisfaction | 21:26 | |
and ahead with anticipation. | 21:28 | |
Let us not forget those whose work is frustrating. | 21:33 | |
Who discover in themselves a wound which will never heal. | 21:38 | |
Whose marriage hurts or breaks. | 21:43 | |
Whose friends move away or fade away. | 21:47 | |
Who wish they were somebody else. | 21:52 | |
May your love breakthrough their pain | 21:56 | |
and bring peace is our prayer. | 21:59 | |
Oh God we remember those who are old. | 22:03 | |
Who silver threads shine with honor. | 22:08 | |
Whose golden anniversary sing with joy, | 22:12 | |
and whose children remembered to write them | 22:14 | |
and telephone them and visit them. | 22:17 | |
Who have enough health and money. | 22:20 | |
Who have found wisdom and learned patience | 22:23 | |
and journey through life in faith. | 22:26 | |
Oh Lord, let us not forget the old whose health fails, | 22:31 | |
whose children fail, | 22:37 | |
whose courage fails. | 22:40 | |
Who must worry about their dying day. | 22:43 | |
Who languish forgotten in nursing homes | 22:48 | |
or lonely apartments and feel unwanted and unneeded. | 22:50 | |
Who have not found faith for life. | 22:56 | |
May your love breakthrough their pain | 23:01 | |
and bring peace is our prayer. | 23:04 | |
Oh God whose son Jesus did not fear to go into the city | 23:08 | |
where he would be murdered, | 23:12 | |
save us we ask in this congregation | 23:15 | |
from fear of facing the dangers | 23:17 | |
that confront us in our cities. | 23:20 | |
Give us courage to pick up our murder hopes | 23:25 | |
and to begin again, and again, and again. | 23:27 | |
Bless those among us we ask who faced pain, | 23:35 | |
disappointment and death that they find hope in you. | 23:38 | |
Comfort those who are in bereavement. | 23:45 | |
And let us receive with thanksgiving | 23:48 | |
the benefits of those who have died. | 23:51 | |
Oh God whose son Jesus made himself vulnerable | 23:57 | |
to take common cause with children, | 24:00 | |
the weak, the poor, the outsider, the unpopular. | 24:04 | |
Awaken in us compassion | 24:10 | |
for all who struggle against the odds. | 24:12 | |
Nourish in us the capacity to bear insult | 24:16 | |
and forbear injury knowing our own aggressions | 24:20 | |
and seeking ever to understand rather than to provoke. | 24:25 | |
Make us we ask old Lord tender through suffering | 24:31 | |
and generous through loss. | 24:36 | |
Oh God, whose son Jesus put himself in jeopardy | 24:39 | |
to make a daring dream come true. | 24:42 | |
Grant us and the common ventures of our time and place | 24:47 | |
to be daring in action, risking our investments | 24:51 | |
and investing ourselves for the sake of the future | 24:56 | |
in honor of the past, and to fulfill the present. | 25:00 | |
Oh Lord, let your love we ask heal and hallow all our loss. | 25:06 | |
Quiet the drum beat up destructive desire, | 25:16 | |
sever the soft chains of self-indulgence within us all, | 25:22 | |
pacify our unruly passions | 25:28 | |
and realign our deflected priorities. | 25:33 | |
For we want to taste your tranquility | 25:37 | |
and drink your health and live your life | 25:41 | |
as it was taught to us by Jesus your son | 25:46 | |
in whose name we offer these prayers | 25:50 | |
and in whose name we are bold to pray together | 25:54 | |
as Christians saying, | 25:57 | |
our father who art in heaven, | 26:00 | |
hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, | 26:03 | |
thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. | 26:07 | |
Give us this day our daily bread | 26:12 | |
and forgive us our trespasses | 26:15 | |
as we forgive those who trespass against us | 26:17 | |
and lead us not into temptation, | 26:22 | |
but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom | 26:25 | |
and the power and the glory forever. | 26:29 | |
Amen. | 26:34 | |
- | More than 30 years ago, | 27:01 |
there came to the American stage, | 27:04 | |
a remarkable play by Thornton Wilder, | 27:07 | |
Our Town, which reaches into the past of America | 27:11 | |
and portrays a New England village | 27:18 | |
between the years 1901 and 1913. | 27:22 | |
Wilder brings to us the wind blown hills, the plowed fields, | 27:30 | |
the sound of the early train and the school bells, | 27:38 | |
the quiet serenity of Grover's Corners, | 27:43 | |
a little village in New Hampshire. | 27:48 | |
We glimpse the town's untarnished life, | 27:52 | |
as in the first act we arrive at breakfast time | 27:56 | |
and are carried through an entire day | 28:02 | |
in the lives of such people as the milkman, the paper boy, | 28:06 | |
the general practitioner and the local editor. | 28:13 | |
Act two, appropriately called love and marriage, | 28:20 | |
celebrates the wedding of George Gibbs and Emily Webb. | 28:27 | |
The last act is laid in the village cemetery | 28:32 | |
on a windy hilltop, | 28:35 | |
where the people rest from the cares of earth. | 28:38 | |
But there is a new grave for Emily has died in childbirth. | 28:44 | |
Then in a strange retake of human existence, | 28:50 | |
Emily is told that she can relive a single day in her life. | 28:56 | |
And with childish ecstasy, she chooses her 12th birthday. | 29:03 | |
At first it was wonderfully exciting to be young again, | 29:10 | |
but soon the day held no joy. | 29:16 | |
For with her knowledge of the future, | 29:20 | |
it was unbearable to realize how she had been unaware | 29:23 | |
of the meaning and the wonder of life when she was alive. | 29:28 | |
And so Emily says, "Live people don't understand, do they?" | 29:36 | |
We don't have time to look at one another. | 29:44 | |
So all this is going on and we never noticed. | 29:48 | |
Oh earth you are too wonderful for anyone to realize you. | 29:54 | |
Do human beings ever realize life while they live it? | 30:02 | |
Now the passing years have simply underscored | 30:11 | |
the relevance of this play. | 30:13 | |
For today we have become habituated to a cinematic, | 30:17 | |
restless vision, | 30:21 | |
which leaves so by out on the surface of things, | 30:24 | |
but never penetrates beneath | 30:28 | |
the circumstantial levels of reality. | 30:30 | |
Indeed we are reminded of captain MacWhirr | 30:35 | |
in Joseph Conrad's Typhoon. | 30:38 | |
When the writer says captain MacWhirr | 30:42 | |
had sailed over the surface of the oceans, | 30:44 | |
as some man go skimming over the years of existence, | 30:48 | |
to sink finally into a placid grave, | 30:54 | |
ignorant of life to the last, | 30:58 | |
without ever having been made to see | 31:01 | |
all that it might contain of pathidy | 31:06 | |
and of violence and of terror. | 31:09 | |
Perhaps we need not marvel therefore, | 31:13 | |
that the psychiatrist's couch has become for us, | 31:18 | |
not only a confessional booth, | 31:20 | |
but the place of revelation, | 31:24 | |
where the professional guides us back into half lived events | 31:27 | |
to discover all over again their content and their meaning. | 31:34 | |
Today we all tend to attach ourselves to whatever passes by. | 31:40 | |
We are distracted from distraction by distraction. | 31:44 | |
We go on hoping that reality can be affirmed | 31:50 | |
from the outside, | 31:54 | |
yet how often the things we miss seeing | 31:57 | |
are the things we miss being. | 31:59 | |
For you see being is conscious existence. | 32:03 | |
It is the capacity to respond to reality. | 32:07 | |
Life is what we are alive to. | 32:13 | |
No wonder St. Theresa once said, | 32:17 | |
"I require of you only to look." | 32:20 | |
Now this morning my mind is drawn | 32:27 | |
to a remarkable saying of Jesus, | 32:28 | |
"If your eye be generous, | 32:31 | |
then the whole body will full of light." | 32:35 | |
To be sure, the original context of this saying | 32:41 | |
is not known. | 32:44 | |
Matthew and Luke place it differently | 32:47 | |
and they understand it differently. | 32:50 | |
Some versions of speak of the eye being single | 32:53 | |
and of the eye being evil. | 32:57 | |
In ancient Hebrew thought, | 33:00 | |
the evil eye often suggested the grudging | 33:02 | |
or the jealous spirit. | 33:06 | |
The word translated in the context today, | 33:10 | |
the word generous can also suggest sound or healthy | 33:13 | |
or single or sincere. | 33:18 | |
It would seem to me that Jesus is saying at least in part, | 33:23 | |
if your eye be generous, if it is wide open, | 33:26 | |
if it is undistracted, | 33:32 | |
you will have a clear vision of reality. | 33:35 | |
But by the same token, | 33:39 | |
if one has the grudging and the ungenerous spirit, | 33:40 | |
this will distort and blur ones' vision of life. | 33:46 | |
How much of life | 33:54 | |
actually is a matter of attentiveness and hospitality? | 33:55 | |
Even on all the elementary level of the nature | 34:00 | |
there is the aristocracy of the attentive, | 34:02 | |
for within the animal world the ultimate aristocrats | 34:06 | |
are those who pay enough attention to their environment | 34:10 | |
to survive and leave some descendants. | 34:14 | |
Consider also the newborn infant. | 34:19 | |
Born, yes, | 34:22 | |
but ever yet to be born. | 34:24 | |
In a state of suspension. | 34:27 | |
A creature in the physical world, | 34:30 | |
yet always to be born into successive worlds of meaning | 34:32 | |
and value and relationships. | 34:37 | |
Surely the generous eye is essential | 34:42 | |
in the realm of intellect. | 34:45 | |
How often we speak of the play of the mind | 34:48 | |
by which we mean its animal spirits, it's restlessness, | 34:52 | |
it's vitality. | 34:58 | |
This is the sort of thing that gives range | 35:00 | |
and momentum to the mind, | 35:02 | |
for it always lures us beyond pedestrian trills. | 35:05 | |
No one needs to be indiscriminately open | 35:10 | |
to the clutter and the clutter of life. | 35:14 | |
But we do need a wide hospitality to ideas. | 35:17 | |
What I would call the explorative thrust of the mind. | 35:21 | |
I am persuaded that too many men become too certain | 35:28 | |
about too many things too soon in their lives. | 35:31 | |
And they lack both the wisdom and the knowledge | 35:36 | |
to expose their hastily adopted ideas, | 35:39 | |
to further doubts and reflections. | 35:42 | |
In these immature absolutists, lies the seed of tragedy. | 35:46 | |
But come further with me now and let us know | 35:55 | |
that to have a generous eye, | 35:57 | |
to look at things openly and freshly, | 36:00 | |
to see them as they really are nowhere | 36:04 | |
is this more important than in our human relationships. | 36:07 | |
For if the Christian faith confers anything upon a man, | 36:12 | |
surely it ought to be that vision of humanity, | 36:16 | |
enunciated by the apostle Paul when he said, | 36:20 | |
"Henceforth, we regard no man, | 36:24 | |
from the purely human point of view." | 36:29 | |
No doubt he understood that we all live | 36:35 | |
and work within a network of mutuality. | 36:38 | |
Perceived by John Donne when he wrote, | 36:42 | |
No Man Is An Island entire of itself. | 36:45 | |
For every man is part of a continent. | 36:50 | |
He is part of the mainland. | 36:54 | |
Therefore, every man's death diminishes me | 36:57 | |
for I am a part of all mankind. | 37:03 | |
Surely one of the great tragedies of our era | 37:09 | |
is that we have tried to strike ever | 37:13 | |
the primordial oneness of man. | 37:17 | |
We have sought to split on the circumference, | 37:21 | |
that which cannot be split at the center. | 37:24 | |
And today in the value and struggles of minorities | 37:29 | |
for recognition and dignity, | 37:33 | |
are they not saying to us all open your eyes. | 37:36 | |
Look at us from God's point of view. | 37:40 | |
Human dignity is I did find bestowal, | 37:45 | |
it is not the grudging concession of sinful man. | 37:48 | |
As always, justice is a vision in the mind and the heart | 37:54 | |
long before it is a law on the statute books. | 38:00 | |
So you see law by its very nature is a way of seeing. | 38:05 | |
It is the capacity | 38:09 | |
and the willingness to penetrate objectively | 38:12 | |
into the individual awareness | 38:16 | |
and the feeling of another person. | 38:19 | |
It's to see the world through his eyes, | 38:22 | |
even if they are wicked or pity or a mean or dark. | 38:25 | |
For you love always sees something | 38:30 | |
of the might have been in every life. | 38:35 | |
This love of which we speak | 38:39 | |
is more than a diffused essence of amiability. | 38:41 | |
Certainly it is an invincible goodwill. | 38:46 | |
It is an unconquerable benevolence | 38:49 | |
an inward openness to the needs of others. | 38:53 | |
A constructive set of mind. | 38:56 | |
A hard headed intention to do for another | 38:59 | |
what can be done to secure his highest and best | 39:04 | |
as clearly as we can discern it. | 39:08 | |
Love is always a communion being. | 39:12 | |
It is the sense of the human burden | 39:15 | |
and the burden of being human. | 39:18 | |
A recent Broadway musical Lost In The Stars, | 39:24 | |
based upon Alan Paton's great classic of South Africa, | 39:28 | |
Cry, the Beloved Country | 39:32 | |
has a stirring song about the power of love | 39:35 | |
to bridge distance and silence and years. | 39:39 | |
Stephen Kumalo has left his little valley church in the tall | 39:46 | |
to search for his wayward son Absalom | 39:51 | |
in the Babylon and of Johannesburg. | 39:54 | |
And this humble man, | 39:58 | |
always Gods' servant, | 40:01 | |
though often he's bewildered servant sings, | 40:04 | |
how many miles to the heart of a son, | 40:09 | |
thousands and thousands of miles. | 40:13 | |
Each lives alone in a world of dark | 40:18 | |
crossing the skies in a lonely arc | 40:22 | |
save when love leaps out like a leaping spark | 40:26 | |
over thousands and thousands of miles. | 40:32 | |
Not miles our walls are length of days. | 40:37 | |
Not a cold doubt midnight can hold us apart, | 40:41 | |
for swifter than the wings of the morning | 40:46 | |
are the pathways of the heart. | 40:50 | |
Now consider one further dimension of experience | 40:56 | |
that requires almost the generous eye. | 40:59 | |
And I think it's suggested in our Lord's experience | 41:03 | |
with the Pharisees and the Saddusees in Matthew's gospel, | 41:05 | |
I'm sure Jesus lived among many people | 41:12 | |
who could neither read nor write. | 41:14 | |
But the kind of illiteracy he deplored | 41:18 | |
was an inability to read the signs of the times. | 41:22 | |
A certain blindness to what is happening around one. | 41:29 | |
This is why he said to the Pharisees, | 41:35 | |
"You can discern the clouds and the face of the sky, | 41:37 | |
but you cannot discern the signs of the times." | 41:41 | |
Where certainly it's never easy | 41:47 | |
to read the signs of the times, | 41:48 | |
particularly in a day of a cosmic Halloween | 41:51 | |
of dark witchery and fear, | 41:54 | |
but neither is it easy for us to discern God's glory | 41:57 | |
because his glory is never precisely what we think it is. | 42:00 | |
There are many epiphanies through which he reveals himself. | 42:07 | |
But so often there's no sign on the door, | 42:11 | |
there's no notice in the paper, | 42:13 | |
there is no spire on the roof. | 42:16 | |
When our Lord came to this earth, | 42:19 | |
there was no Hollywood setting | 42:22 | |
for that biblical extravaganza. | 42:24 | |
Rather God's attack of grace upon this human scene | 42:27 | |
took place on a small postage stamp off earth. | 42:32 | |
Perhaps today he still comes into human life, | 42:38 | |
not in the big and the boisterous and the bizarre, | 42:41 | |
but rather in those quiet and unobtrusive events | 42:47 | |
of daily life. | 42:52 | |
If only we could read his coming. | 42:54 | |
I'd rather think that today all of us are easily preoccupied | 43:02 | |
with what words with called the burden and the mystery, | 43:06 | |
the weary weight of this unintelligible world. | 43:11 | |
And in the crisis of hope which we are experiencing today, | 43:18 | |
I see a possible peril namely the deporting | 43:22 | |
of individual man through cynicism and despair. | 43:27 | |
Sir Kenneth Clark, | 43:36 | |
in his monumental study on civilization from the fall | 43:38 | |
of the Roman empire to the present, | 43:40 | |
concludes that while we might not be entering upon | 43:44 | |
a new period off barbarism in the human pilgrimage, | 43:47 | |
he does say that there is obviously a crisis of confidence, | 43:52 | |
but that we can be destroyed as easily by cynicism | 43:58 | |
and this illusion as we can't be destroyed by bombs. | 44:03 | |
And I do firmly believe, that the great tragedy of life | 44:10 | |
is not in the fact of death itself, | 44:14 | |
but in that which dies inside a man while he lives. | 44:19 | |
The day at the faith and hope and feeling | 44:25 | |
and awareness and response. | 44:30 | |
Death comes when we no longer care. | 44:34 | |
When those forces, which made for righteousness | 44:37 | |
and beauty and truth perish in the hearts of man. | 44:41 | |
And in this day, | 44:48 | |
when we suffer such widespread lassitude | 44:50 | |
and failure of nerve, a dispirited waiting for (indistinct), | 44:52 | |
that affects us all. | 44:58 | |
Does not the Christian faith call upon each of us | 45:01 | |
for the enlargement off life in God, | 45:05 | |
and for the discovery of our representative capacity? | 45:09 | |
When our Lord was on this earth, | 45:15 | |
he read the cosmic weather map. | 45:16 | |
He said, there is turbulence ahead. | 45:20 | |
The rains will fall. | 45:25 | |
The floods will come. | 45:28 | |
The winds will blow. | 45:31 | |
But he also said be of good cheer, | 45:34 | |
for I have overcome the world. | 45:37 | |
And certainly he leaned more toward the glad | 45:40 | |
celebration of life than he did for the sad endurance of it. | 45:43 | |
St. Paul had something of the same optimism, | 45:49 | |
for after he had surveyed the slings | 45:53 | |
and arrows of outrageous fortune in his own life, | 45:55 | |
he exclaimed, We may be knocked down, | 45:59 | |
but we are never knocked out." | 46:05 | |
The old Negro spirituals are far witness | 46:12 | |
and none the least is that one which affirms that history | 46:17 | |
can be incredibly harsh. | 46:23 | |
No body know the trouble I see, | 46:27 | |
but it ends with this brave align | 46:33 | |
as liberty could invent. | 46:36 | |
Glory, hallelujah. | 46:40 | |
Only generous eyes, see the trouble and the hallelujah. | 46:46 | |
Let us pray. | 46:55 | |
Eternal father, grant us the gift of the generous eye | 47:02 | |
and the courage of the open road | 47:09 | |
that we might come to true understanding before thee | 47:13 | |
for in thy light do we see light | 47:17 | |
through Jesus Christ our Lord. | 47:22 | |
Amen. | 47:26 | |
(piano music playing) | 47:30 | |
(organs drown out choir) | 48:15 | |
(piano music playing) | 50:04 | |
(organs drown out choir) | 52:41 | |
- | Oh Lord, our father, receive and hallow to the ministries | 55:55 |
of this house of worship these fruit of our labors | 56:00 | |
to the end that your reign of joy and peace and justice | 56:06 | |
maybe known here in this earthly kingdom. | 56:10 | |
And here our father we offer and present to you, our selves, | 56:14 | |
our souls and bodies to be a reasonable, holy | 56:19 | |
and living sacrifice. | 56:24 | |
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, by whom and with whom | 56:27 | |
in the unity of the holy spirit, | 56:30 | |
all honor and glory be to you | 56:32 | |
oh father almighty, world without end. | 56:36 | |
Go forth now to do God's work in the world. | 56:45 | |
And may you have peace with the restlessness of God | 56:48 | |
and grace that paradox of discipline and freedom | 56:52 | |
and always joy to fill the cup of all your celebrations. | 56:57 | |
(muffled congregation singing) | 57:06 | |
(bell ringing) | 57:57 | |
(piano music playing) | 58:15 |
Item Info
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